


It Ain't Easy

by anthean



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars: Thrawn Series - Timothy Zahn (2017)
Genre: Aftercare, Dom/sub, M/M, Oral Sex, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn with Feelings, Praise Kink, Service Top, Subspace, Thrawn's Kink Is Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 22:37:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19473631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthean/pseuds/anthean
Summary: Thrawn did not entirely understand why sometimes Eli wanted it this way instead: wanted his will subsumed under Thrawn’s, wanted to be ordered, wanted control wrested from his grasp.It did not matter. Understanding came with practice, and practicing this particular skill was very enjoyable indeed.





	It Ain't Easy

**Author's Note:**

> The usual thanks to 13th_blackbird, for feelings and paragraph breaks.

Thrawn sat at his new desk, his legs stretched out and his posture comfortable, reading an assessment of the Chimaera’s TIE complement on a datapad. It was the sixth such assessment he’d read today, and he was growing tired. His move to the Chimaera had occurred nearly a week ago, and he was slowly working his way down the endless list of things that needed to be reviewed, adjusted, tweaked, or discarded as he molded the ship and its crew exactly as he required.

 _Their_ move, he should say, because of course Eli had come with him. Had been assigned alongside him, certainly, but Thrawn thought that Eli would have chosen to stay by his side regardless.

None of them _were_ free to choose, of course. But it was a pleasant thought.

A chime broke his reverie, and he looked up as the door slid open and Eli walked through. Faint weariness suffused his posture, a slight droop of the shoulders and looseness in the arms, but his eyes were bright and focused still.

“Lieutenant Commander,” Thrawn said, and watched Eli’s shoulders straighten with unconscious pride. “It is late for a visit.”

“Sorry, sir,” Eli said. He sat at Thrawn’s gesture. “I can go if you’d prefer, it’s nothing urgent. But I just finished meeting with Sergeant Muth about organizing the rota for gunnery drills, and I thought you’d still be awake.” He shifted in his chair. “In case you wanted a summary.”

Thrawn looked closer: the position of Eli’s limbs and torso screamed exhaustion, but the muscles of his throat were tight, and his hands twisted in his lap. His cheeks were slightly hot as well, that flush of blood that Thrawn could never ignore.

Eli’s agitation, the threadbare excuse to enter Thrawn’s quarters, the particular shade of his voice when he called Thrawn _sir..._

He wanted something, and Thrawn had his suspicions about what it was.

Thrawn set the datapad on the edge of the desk. “I do not,” he said, and stood up. 

Eli tensed to stand as well, and Thrawn cut him off with a sharp movement of his hand. “ _Sit_ ,” he commanded, and Eli froze.

Thrawn walked around the desk and behind Eli’s chair, his steps steady and measured, taking his time. Eli sat bolt upright in the chair, his breathing shallow. Aside from his eyes, following Thrawn’s movements intently, he sat completely still.

Neither of them were much for games in the bedroom, ordinarily, preferring a more fluid give and take, passing control back and forth. And Thrawn did not entirely understand why sometimes Eli wanted it this way instead: wanted his will subsumed under Thrawn’s, wanted to be ordered, wanted control wrested from his grasp.

It did not matter. Understanding came with practice, and practicing this particular skill was very enjoyable indeed.

He stepped up behind Eli’s chair and grabbed the back of his uniform collar in a tight fist, pulling the fabric taut against the front of Eli’s throat, and pulled up a little so that Eli had to half rise or be choked. Eli made a stifled noise, part protest and part gasp of pleasure, and the beginnings of arousal stirred deep inside Thrawn, hot and dark.

“Tell me why you are here, Lieutenant Commander,” he murmured into Eli’s ear, then took the lobe between his teeth and bit, hard.

“To...report,” Eli gasped. 

They had barely touched, and yet his skin was burning hot under Thrawn’s tongue, his eyes wide and his mouth slack. He was already giving in, already beginning to lose himself under Thrawn’s control. He must have been desperate.

“Wrong,” Thrawn said, and brushed his hand down Eli’s body. Eli strained forward for the touch, and Thrawn yanked him back against the chair by the hand at his collar. “Try again.”

“Sir,” Eli groaned. Thrawn bit the side of his neck as a reward, and Eli panted for a moment as the words left him. “Don’t make me say it. It’s obvious.”

Thrawn dragged Eli out of the chair by the collar and threw him facedown across the desk. A cry escaped Eli’s lips and he struggled for a moment, but Thrawn crowded up behind him and pinned him before he could escape. Eli arced against him and Thrawn pushed him down bodily, his chest pressed to Eli’s back and their hips locked together.

“You can’t fight me, Lieutenant Commander,” Thrawn said, stroking down Eli’s arms before grabbing his wrists and holding his arms immobile. 

His voice wavered the smallest amount at the feel of Eli’s body flexing underneath him, and so he buried his face in Eli’s neck, kissing and biting where the uniform collar was pulled aside. Eli moaned, his hands clenching on air, and he pushed his hips back into Thrawn’s as best he could.

“Now,” Thrawn continued, “I’m going to move, and you will stay where you are.”

“Yes,” Eli mumbled.

Thrawn’s lips twitched. “It was not a request,” he said, keeping the smile out of his voice.

Thrawn released Eli’s wrists and straightened up, gratified when Eli remained splayed out on the desk, his back rising and falling as he breathed, his eyes squeezed shut. He ran his fingers up Eli’s neck and into his hair, letting the fine strands slip through his fingers, then smoothed them down again.

“Good, Eli,” he said, and Eli’s mouth dropped open as he sighed faintly.

Thrawn placed one hand on the back of Eli’s neck, letting it rest there lightly. He could almost feel the blush rising under his fingertips, the rush of blood that ebbed and flowed with Eli’s emotions, so plain to see. 

“I will ask once more,” he said, and tightened his fingers a fractional amount. Eli twitched. “Why are you here, Lieutenant Commander Vanto?”

“For this,” Eli breathed. The muscles of his back tightened as though he wanted to rise, but he stilled them with visible effort. “For you.”

“For me,” Thrawn agreed. 

He drew his index finger across Eli’s mouth, then shoved inside. “Suck,” he said, and Eli shivered as he set his tongue to work.

“Good,” Thrawn repeated. 

And it was: the slide of Eli’s lips and tongue almost confusingly arousing, impossibly sensual. He gave Eli a second finger and bent down to lick around the edge of his ear.

“How shall I use you?” he asked, thrusting his fingers deep into Eli’s mouth. 

Eli hadn’t expected it and jerked against him, his throat working frantically to adjust to the intrusion and his breath hissing faster through his nose. Thrawn let him struggle for a moment, then withdrew his fingers and flipped Eli onto his back with a quick decisive movement.

Eli stared up at him, his pupils wide and his lips red, his arms flung out to either side and his booted feet scrabbling for purchase against the floor. 

“Anything,” he said, his voice cracking.

“Anything?” Thrawn said. 

He began undoing Eli’s belt. Eli reached down to help him and Thrawn smacked his hands away. The sealing strip of Eli’s tunic came next, and Thrawn pulled it open unceremoniously and pushed his hands underneath Eli’s undershirt, against hot skin.

“Anything,” Thrawn repeated. Eli’s eyes were fixed on his mouth, and he had risen to his elbows, the better to press his body into Thrawn’s hands. “Do you deserve _anything_ , Lieutenant Commander? Say, to be brought to my bed and fucked there, where no one else is permitted?” Eli shuddered at that, a small noise of longing escaping him. “Or shall I take you over this desk, worth no more than the countless others I might fuck here and discard?”

There were no others, could never be, and they both knew it. Thrawn, if he was honest, did not like even voicing the possibility. But it was part of the game.

“The desk,” Eli choked out. His eyes slid shut and he turned his face away, his cheeks bright with the red of shame. “I don’t deserve your bed.”

Thrawn slapped him, hard--Eli wouldn’t thank him for holding back, and the sharp sting of his palm connecting with Eli’s cheek sent a bolt of heat tugging at his groin. Eli moaned, offering his face up in wanton invitation, and Thrawn slapped him again.

“That’s not what I want to hear,” he said. 

Eli blinked up at him in confusion, still muddled from the slap. Thrawn dragged him upright and kissed him.

There were many ways to dominate, Thrawn had learned during their games, and the least obvious were often the most appealing. 

He kissed Eli deeply, letting his hands wander through Eli’s hair and down his spine, and pulled away when Eli began to kiss back. Only when Eli was quiescent, arms clinging to Thrawn’s shoulders and legs twined around Thrawn’s waist, did Thrawn deepen the kiss again. He overpowered Eli with lips and tongue and teeth until Eli, who might have asked for rougher usage, could do nothing but surrender and be kissed.

The message was clear: _What you want doesn’t matter. You will take what I give you._

Kissing Eli was addictive, Thrawn had come to realize, something he could do for hours without losing interest. The alien heat of his mouth and salty scent of his skin, the stifled gasps he made as Thrawn bit at his lower lip, the quiver of his body as he held himself back from responding: all of Thrawn’s senses aligned towards the man in his arms.

Eli’s mouth moved beneath Thrawn’s, not an attempt to return the kiss, but an attempt to speak. He pulled back, keeping their faces close, and listened.

“Please,” Eli breathed, “Dammit, Thrawn, I need, I need.” His lips were glowing hot from Thrawn’s kiss, bleeding heat into the flush of his cheeks, and his eyes were half closed.

Thrawn slipped his hands down to Eli’s buttocks and pressed their hips together, grinding his erection against Eli’s. 

“Tell me why,” he said, almost a demand, almost a plea, and Eli’s head dropped to his shoulder.

“Because I’m yours,” he mumbled, the words trickling reluctantly from his mouth. He pulled Thrawn’s uniform open clumsily and kissed Thrawn’s collarbone. His hips twitched. “Yours, yours, gods, _Thrawn-_ ”

Thrawn dragged him upright. “The bedroom,” he said firmly. Eli made a noise of protest, but Thrawn was already pushing him towards the bedroom door.

“Strip,” Thrawn ordered when they arrived, his hands busy removing his own uniform. 

Eli scrambled to obey, managing the buckles and fastenings of his uniform with impressive dexterity given his obvious arousal. Thrawn would ordinarily prefer to watch, might order Eli to undress him as well, string the process out until they were both panting and desperate. But Eli was already wound almost too tight, and Thrawn was beginning to feel the bite of desperation himself.

Next time, then.

When they were both naked he shoved Eli to the bed, half sitting up against the pillow, and pinned him with hands and body, a deliberate echo of how he had immobilized Eli on the desk. Eli twisted under him, trying to gather enough leverage to rub their cocks together.

He couldn’t quite manage it; in this, as in this entire interlude, he would take what Thrawn gave him. Thrawn bit Eli’s shoulder hard enough that he cried out, a long enticing moan of pain and pleasure mixed.

“You have done so well, Eli,” Thrawn praised. “So patient, so good for me.” 

Eli’s body stiffened and for a moment Thrawn thought he would come, astonishingly, with hardly a touch. Then Eli relaxed under him, his head tipping back to display his throat, as though he knew how much more Thrawn had meant.

Eli might have wanted the desk, the fantasy of being worthless and used; Thrawn wanted this, here, Eli pliant in his bed and begging for his touch.

He sat up, pushing Eli back to the bed when he would have followed, and reached into the bedside cabinet for the bottle of lubricant. Eli, his mouth slightly open and a blush spreading down his chest, tracked his movements as Thrawn spread the lubricant over his fingers.

“You finally going to fuck me?” Eli asked, the defiant words undercut by the soft, hazy, timbre of his voice.

“Do you deserve it?” Thrawn replied. He took Eli’s erect cock in a loose grasp and began stroking slowly.

Eli squirmed and turned his face away. “I-”

Thrawn released Eli’s cock. “Say it,” he commanded.

“I _can’t_ ,” Eli choked out.

“You are intelligent and brave, and I know you can. Answer me.” Thrawn bent and sucked a hard kiss into the crease of Eli’s hip, narrowly missing being kicked in the head as Eli’s legs thrashed. “Do you deserve for me to fuck you?”

“I hate you. _Yes_ ,” Eli hissed out, a hiss that turned into a moan of shock and arousal as Thrawn slid a finger inside him.

Thrawn twisted his finger and thrust the way Eli had shown him, the way he had learned during their time in each others’ beds, and Eli’s breath began to come fast and heavy, his hands clenching in the sheets and clear pre-ejaculate leaking from his cock. He stared down at where Thrawn’s finger disappeared into his body, transfixed, his eyes glazed with arousal and struggling to focus.

Thrawn could keep him here for hours, had done so the last time Eli came to him in this mood, until they both were near mindless with lust and longing. But he suddenly was frantic to see Eli come, to watch him twist and writhe on Thrawn’s fingers and spill himself into Thrawn’s hand, and so he thrust harder, adding a second finger beside the first and taking Eli’s cock in a firm grip. Eli spasmed beneath him as he came, his chest lifting off the bed and his legs clenching hard.

Eli was already reaching out for Thrawn as he collapsed, taking no time to recover from his orgasm. Thrawn gracelessly flung himself up the bed and straddled Eli’s chest, shoving his cock into Eli’s eager mouth with a grunt of relief and setting up a fast, punishing, rhythm. Eli gagged, tears springing to his eyes as he fought the reflex down, then grabbed hard at Thrawn’s buttocks and pulled him closer. 

The feel of Eli’s fingers digging into his flesh, the small greedy noises that escaped Eli’s mouth around Thrawn’s cock, the perfect wet heat of that mouth--it was too good, unbearably good, and Thrawn came in a rush of pleasure that swept through him and left him empty.

A drop of ejaculate trickled from Eli’s mouth when Thrawn pulled out. He collected it with his finger and held it to Eli’s lips, and Eli licked it up almost reflexively, his eyes faraway and half closed.

Thrawn knew those signs, knew what to do when he saw them.

He left Eli there, heading to the fresher and retrieving a glass of water and a warm, damp cloth. Eli hadn’t moved when he returned to the bedroom, was still staring into the distance, his arms resting slack at his sides. 

Unsurprising: after such an experience Eli would not sleep, but would go within himself for a while.

Thrawn set the glass down and wiped the tears from Eli’s eyes with the cloth, then cleaned the mess from his stomach; Eli sighed a little at that, but otherwise didn’t move. 

Finally Thrawn got into bed at Eli’s side, sitting up against the wall and pulling the blankets across them both. He took Eli’s hand and placed it so that it rested against his wrist.

Then he picked up a datapad from the bedside cabinet and began reviewing early-dynasty Ghairil sculpture.

After about ten minutes Eli’s fingers twitched against Thrawn’s wrist and he stirred. Thrawn set the datapad aside and looked down: Eli was stretching his hands with a look of great concentration, as though he was remembering how to use them. Thrawn set a gentle hand in Eli’s hair and pulled the blanket up a little further.

Eli looked up, still a little hazy. “Hey,” he said, blinking slowly.

Thrawn passed him the glass of water and Eli drank, then handed it back and rested his head against Thrawn’s hip with a satisfied sigh. His hair was soft and loose on Thrawn’s bare skin; he began stroking it idly, working his fingers down to the scalp.

“You pushed yourself hard tonight,” Thrawn said after a few minutes.

Eli hummed. “Do we have to talk about it?”

“No,” Thrawn said, and waited.

Eli in this mood could be closed off, but he could also be surprisingly ready to talk. The trick was not to push him either way, but to let him set off down a path himself and then guide where necessary.

Sure enough, Eli spoke again after a moment. “I was an ensign for a long time.” He paused, then turned his head to look up at Thrawn. “I guess I got used to it.”

It seemed disconnected from their previous conversation, but Eli rarely spoke without reason and was unusually direct for a human. If Eli felt that his belated promotion was relevant, it was.

Thrawn ran a finger along Eli’s jaw, touched the marks his teeth had left there. Eli’s throat stiffened momentarily before relaxing again, and he tilted his face up to give Thrawn better access.

“We have not yet spoken much of the hardships of command,” Thrawn said, testing. Paths, openings. Sometimes they had to be pointed out.

“It’s been a change,” Eli said, taking Thrawn’s offered path. “Hard. Good, though.” He looked down again.

“You have been doing the work of a Lieutenant Commander for some time now,” Thrawn said. “But-”

“There’s a difference between just doing the work and being acknowledged for doing the work,” Eli said. “Yeah. I’m figuring that out.”

“A hard lesson,” Thrawn said. “But you learn fast and well, and are more than equal to the challenge.”

Eli’s face glowed with heat and his brow furrowed. “Stop it,” he said.

“I state facts,” Thrawn said. Slightly disingenuous: he was also giving Eli the praise that he craved and disliked all at once.

“You’re being _nice_ ,” Eli said. “It’s weird.”

“Two things may be true,” Thrawn agreed. 

He drew a finger across Eli’s forehead, smoothing out the wrinkles, and was quietly amused when Eli brushed him away.

“Don’t give me that,” Eli said. 

He sat up and turned to face Thrawn, straddling his thighs and leaning in for a kiss. His mouth was soft and warm, tired and a little pushy, and he bit gently at Thrawn's lower lip as though reminding him that he was not always content to submit.

“I will give you whatever I choose, and everything you deserve,” Thrawn said. 

Eli melted a little, his body sinking into Thrawn’s and his eyes losing focus, his breath warm on Thrawn’s cheek.

Eli’s cock was beginning to fill again; the human refractory period was a constant astonishment to Thrawn. “Do you want-” he began, dropping his hands to Eli’s hips.

“No, I’m-” Eli broke off, yawning hugely. “I’m really tired. I’d fall asleep.” He kissed Thrawn again. “It’s okay if I stay here tonight,” he said, not really a question.

Thrawn began running their schedules through his mind, checking for anything that might raise suspicions, then stopped. If Eli said it was safe for them to remain together, it meant that Eli had already checked and double-checked and it truly was safe.

A thread of understanding unspooled in his mind: his feeling of safety and Eli’s joy in submission were the same.

“I took care of it,” Eli added. 

Thrawn almost laughed. Safety nowhere else but here, but here, it was absolute.

Eli climbed off his lap and lay down, wrapping himself in the blankets until only his tousled hair was visible. 

“You can keep the light on if you want,” he said, voice muffled and already slurry with sleep.

Thrawn set his hand back on Eli’s head, feeling him press closer in drowsy contentment. He should go back out to the office and finish reviewing the TIE assessment, or at least retrieve the datapad and complete his review here.

Instead, he picked up his text on Ghairil sculpture and resumed reading where he had left off.

Everything else could wait.


End file.
